Most of the
Swordfish produced during the Second World War were constructed by
Blackburn Aviation, including all Swordfish Mks. II and III. This
situation must have felt good to Fairey Aviation - the company
responsible for the original design - inasmuch as the two had been locked
in competition throughout the 1920s and 1930s as suppliers of aircraft to
the Fleet Air Arm. Blackburn producing the Swordfish would have been the
equivalent of Chance Vought having to produce Hellcats because they had
no Corsair. These Swordfish built by Blackburn were called "Blackfish."

The
ungainly-looking biplane was in fact the most successful naval strike
aircraft of the war. (I'm sure that there are SBD crews who would
argue the point. Ed) Taranto, the "Bismarck" pursuit, and "The
Channel Dash" are epic actions during which the Swordfish passed into
legend. What is less well-known but perhaps more important than all of
these combined was the day-to-day work of the Swordfish during the Battle
of the Atlantic. From 1940 to 1945, the Fleet Air Arm sank 18 Axis
submarines and shared 16 other sinkings with escort vessels or RAF
units. The Swordfish was responsible for 15 of the 18 solo kills, and
participated in 10 of the 16 shared sinkings - and it didn't even enter
the Battle of the Atlantic until February 1943! That is quite a record
for an airplane that was considered obsolete at the time the war broke
out.

The Swordfish
first went aboard the escort carrier H.M.S. "Biter" in February 1943.
Later that year the first MAC ships - converted grain ships or tankers
even smaller than the CVEs, with no below-decks hangar space to get the
4-6 aircraft they carried out of the weather for maintenance or
protection - began operations. The Swordfish was famous for being able
to stagger off these decks in weather conditions that kept other aircraft
tied down for safety, and for bringing its crews back to decks pitching
through 20-30 feet in North Atlantic storms where the freezing level was
at 500 feet. Escorting Archangel convoy RA-58 in April 1944, Swordfish
of 819 Squadron flew from H.M.S. "Activity," while Avengers of 846
Squadron - the premier Avenger sub-hunting squadron - flew from H.M.S.
"Tracker." The Swordfish flew on days when 846's Avengers couldn't even
be brought on deck to attempt a launch.

The Swordfish
that accomplished all this was the Mk.II, a progressive modification of
the original Mk.I, that was primarily distinguishable by its strengthened
lower wings, the lower surfaces of which to just outboard of the bomb
racks were metal covered. These wings were fitted to the Swordfish for
the remainder of the Blackburn production run, staring with W5836, which
also utilized the more powerful Pegasus 30 engine. Late-production
Swordfish IIs and all Swordfish IIIs are distinguishable by an enlarged
oil cooler on the starboard forward fuselage.

The aircraft
had been experimentally equipped with radar in 1941. By 1943, all
Swordfish II carried early ASV radar, with the Mk.III - which entered
service in late 1943 - carrying centimetric air-to-surface radar in a
radome between the landing gear.

The Swordfish
first successfully fired rockets during tests in October, 1942. The
Swordfish took rockets into action beginning in 1943, with the first
successful use of rockets against a U-boat occurring on May 23, 1943,
when a Swordfish of 811 Squadron flown by Sub-Lt. Horrocks pierced the
hull of U-752, which subsequently sank after further attacks by Wildcats
and a bomb-carrying Swordfish. The last contact between a Swordfish and
a U-boat occurred April 20, 1945.

THE KIT

For those of
you who want to know how to build the Swordfish "out of the box," I refer
you to my earlier article. Since much
of the work on this model other than the modifications, is exactly
similar to what is described there, I shall limit my discussion here to
those items that were changed or modified to create a Swordfish Mk.II.

CONSTRUCTION

The Cockpit:

The only
modification to the cockpit was the addition of the "black box" for the
ASV radar. I used one from the Tamiya Mosquito N.F.II/F.B.VI kit that I
had saved, and mounted it in the space below the pilot's cockpit, where
it was accessible to the observer in the middle seat.

The Wings:

The big thing
to do here is sand off the rib detail, out to the seventh rib in from the
wingtip. I also got rid of the landing light in the starboard wing,
filling in that space with plastic sheet and puttying over the area. I
scored panel lines after the rib detail was removed, doing that every
four "ribs" across this section.

The major
change was to deploy the slats on the upper wing. This is a simple
modification, that can be done to any Swordfish you are making. I simply
cut out the slats from the upper and lower surfaces and glued them
together. I then assembled each upper wing outer panel, and covered over
the area under the flap with a piece of plastic sheet that was curved to
give an aerodynamic appearance. When the slats had set up, I sanded them
down using a sanding block, to obtain the proper cross-sectional shape.
I made the attachments from Evergreen rod material.

The Yagi Antennas:

The Swordfish
II has the yagi antennas for the ASV radar prominently attached to the
forward outer interplane strut. I went again to the parts box, and took
the "T" antennas I had saved from the Tamiya Beaufighters I didn't turn
into night fighters. I attached the inner and outer ones together, then
added additional antennas made from thin Evergreen rod, and set them
aside.

The
Oil Cooler:

The larger oil
cooler seemed at first to be the biggest problem in modifying the kit
item to this structure. I ended up using some 15-mill plastic sheet,
cutting eight to the same shape as the lower side of the kit part, with
seven pieces cut slightly smaller in dimension. I then stacked these and
attached them to the bottom of the kit part.

Miscellany:

To create the
Swordfish II, the modeler also needs to use part G-11 instead of G-10 in
assembly section 11, and to use the collector ring part D-8 instead of
D-7 when assembling the cowling. You also need to use the longer
exhaust, rather than parts A-16 and A-17.

The rockets
provided in the kit look accurate when compared with photos, and merely
need to be assembled. When boring out the holes in the lower wing,
merely bore out the holes the instruction sheet does not call for you to
open, and leave closed the ones on the inner part of the lower wing that
the instructions tell you to open.

A modeler
could install the flares as per the kit instructions. I decided not to,
and filed the racks so they would look "open" when installed.

CAMOUFLAGE & MARKINGS

I used
Gunze-Sanyo H-312 "Light Green" for British Interior Green in the
cockpit; I used H-414 "Rot23 Red" for the fabric primer paint and H-85
"Sail Color" for the doped fabric, which I painted in the manner
explained in detail in the earlier review.

I painted the
D-Day invasion stripes before doing anything else and masked these off.
I made sure the white areas of these stripes that would be against the
white of the camouflage was un-tinted, so that it would "stand out" from
the tinted-white camouflage, as if it had been newly-applied as it would
have been on the real thing.

I used Tamiya
paints throughout in finishing off the model externally. I used XF-22 "RLM
Grey" for Slate Grey and XF-24 "Dark Grey" for Dark Sea Grey. I used
XF-2 Flat White, tinted with a brushful of Neutral Grey, for the rest of
the aircraft. I also prepared the model by "pre-shadowing" all the panel
lines with airbrushed lines of "Flat Black" prior to applying the
camouflage. Once the model was painted, I then used Tamiya "Smoke"
applied lightly along panel lines and ribs for a subdued effect. Once
everything was dry, I overcoated the model with two coats of Future, in
preparation for applying the markings.

Decals:

There is a
decal sheet originally created by MDC for their resin Swordfish, which is
all Mk.II aircraft, and available from Hannant's in the XtraDecal line.
This was used for the model.

FINAL CONSTRUCTION

I mounted the
photo-etch cross-bracing to the interplane struts, then widened the slots
they would attach to on the outer wings, so that they could fit without
damaging the P-E. On my previous Swordfish, I had found these slots were
too tight to allow assembly with the photo-etch bracing. Once the outer
wings were assembled, I waited on the rest of the rigging until the whole
airplane was assembled.

I then
attached the outer wings to the fuselage/stub-wing assembly and allowed
all that to set up overnight. I then attached the main landing gear and
the engine. Once all this was set up, I attached the rocket
sub-assemblies and the flare rack sub-assemblies to the lower wings.

When all was
set up, I rigged the wings with the rest of the photo-etch rigging
supplied, and then made the tail control wires using straightened
"High-E" guitar string (actually .008 stainless steel wire).

CONCLUSIONS

There you have
it: a biplane with invasion stripes, rockets, and radar - what an
anachronism!! The amount of scratchbuilding for this conversion is
minimal, and all the major parts you need to do this variety of Swordfish
is already in the kit. I wonder when Tamiya will get around to releasing
a Swordfish II of their own.